Jeff Riber: Real Estate Broker Leadership by Example

REE#174
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Jeff Riber: [00:00:00] if we do all of our, work and value add up front, then when we hit some sort of bump in the road down the line, it's not going to be a big deal. They trust us. They know that we're working for them. They know what problems we're solving.

Jeff Riber: They're going to be on board. today. I am going to enlighten you with one of the top real estate brokers in the greater Jacksonville, Florida markets. He has been in the industry for 20 years, starting off as a mortgage underwriter. If I read his LinkedIn correctly, he was a successful collegiate athlete at Liberty university, where he played basketball in the 2004.

Tracy Hayes: He,~ uh,~ they were in the NCAA tournament. So we'll hear about that. He is the broker of of the new pursuit real estate. Let's welcome jeff reber to the show. Sorry. I [00:01:00] botched that I 

Jeff Riber: was really thinking the botch was in mentioning that I was in college in 2004 and that is immediately, ~uh ~Aged me 20 years.

Jeff Riber: I still feel like basketball court, but I just want to make sure I read 

Tracy Hayes: that correctly. I had your LinkedIn. I oftentimes I don't quiz anybody on what was there. I just copy it over and make something 

Jeff Riber: that's good. So we're coming out of a franchise prior to and pursue real estate is the, you know, unaffiliated, if you will, independent real estate brokerage that we just started up in June of last year.

Jeff Riber: So it's still relatively new. We're not even. A year into the non franchise operations, but it's been a lot of fun so far. And thank you for having me,~ uh,~ this, I've seen the show before. It's great stuff. And so I'm just honored to 

Tracy Hayes: be here. Definitely. We want to share your story. I mean, you've got a lot of experience, like you said, working with the two larger brokerages now going off,~ um,~ you know, here with pursuit and, you know, my vision always, as I state to everyone,~ uh,~ usually I do this [00:02:00] pre show, but,~ uh,~ hoping to inspire an agent.

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~whether it's a new agent coming on what, you know, some advice that you might be giving them or some agents out there who, as I think a lot of a lot of them run their trail with current brokers. They're not adding value anymore and they start looking and maybe something that you're doing at pursuit might be something they might be interested.

Tracy Hayes: Come talk to you. Hopefully 

Jeff Riber: I can be of inspiration from this perspective, which is I'm not that smart. ~Um, ~honestly, I, I don't work that incredibly hard. Like we have five kids, so there's a lot going on. I don't really work more than 40 hours a week, but it's,~ uh,~ what success I've had. ~Uh, ~in the real estate industry is, is first off, you know, God has been very gracious to us and our family.

Jeff Riber: And then it's just persistence, you know, staying with a problem longer than other people are willing to,~ uh,~ pays off in the long run. And I got into the business in 2007. And so I feel like anybody that's new in the business today, you know, we're coming off a bit of a high in 22, 21, 22 and some of 23 for the real estate market.

Jeff Riber: [00:03:00] Not so dissimilar to 2005, six, seven, and I had just gotten my license,~ uh,~ for real estate 

Tracy Hayes: was in the mortgage. You're jumping away. Cause that was one of my questions. You dove in like in worst time possible, maybe in the 

Jeff Riber: last a hundred years. And so, yeah, to, to those that do listen, just know that you can.

Jeff Riber: ~Um, ~in my opinion, build a lasting career in a way that's maybe better given that you started during the hard times versus starting when it's easy and getting comfortable and,~ uh,~ you know, just allowing the market to do the work for you versus whenever the market's not so great, you have to, as a real estate broker and agent, go out and do the work 

Tracy Hayes: yourself.

Tracy Hayes: Well, I obviously I know Bobby Brennan's with you. She's, she's. It's got a lot of experience on the rebel besides Bobby as far as experience on in at pursuit reality. What's your average time in? Yeah. So, 

Jeff Riber: ~um, ~as far, so we have 16 agents outside of myself. I don't know that I could come up with an average, [00:04:00] but,~ uh,~ we have a handful of agents that have been in the business at least as long as I have.

Jeff Riber: Okay, good. ~Um, ~so some of them now at this point in their careers are more part time than full time, but,~ uh,~ we do have a couple of agents that are 10 plus years. And that's helpful, but I feel like even more helpful than that, though, was if you were in the business in 2008, 2009, even 2010, you have a real feel for, like, what it takes to go out and just get after it in real estate to try and survive, you know, ~um, ~and, and so we, we have.

Jeff Riber: a handful of agents that fit that category 

Tracy Hayes: too. And just for those who are listening, you know, because the builders really didn't get, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, when the collapse happened, you know, basically 2006 things started to turn down. ~Um, ~you go into seven and eight and, you know, it's, it's rough.

Tracy Hayes: The builders went at that time below,~ uh,~ I, I've, I've researched this,~ um,~ lowest it had been in 50 years, they went below [00:05:00] that the previous 50 years. So we set new low records for new homes being built. And there was this period of time, basically from, you know, ~uh, ~probably 2007 or whenever you would actually started.

Tracy Hayes: It wasn't until 2012 until the builders reached that 50 year low again. So there was a good four. Plus years where there was no new construction going on,~ uh,~ of significance as we have today. ~Uh, ~so nine and 10, even though the rates were dropping late 08 and then 09 people, the refinance boom was on it.

Tracy Hayes: You still were fighting to fight through foreclosures and short sales and all that stuff. Well, 

Jeff Riber: half of what we sold back in those years, oh, eight, nine, 10 were either short sales or foreclosures. So you're absolutely right about that. It was about 50 percent of the marketplace. And then the other thing, and this is sort of turning to, you know, what hopefully will continue to be a long run.

Jeff Riber: of a growing economy and population in Northeast Florida is that we got so far behind [00:06:00] with the new construction units that we needed to keep up with population growth and residential housing going out of,~ uh,~ you know, service in the world of real estate that we still have a long ways to go. So it's like, 

Tracy Hayes: millions and millions of homes.

Jeff Riber: We're still way behind the curve as a country, as a state, and as a city. Yeah, when you look at those numbers. Yep. 100 

Tracy Hayes: percent observation. ~Um, ~I'm gonna step back, cause we're gonna circle back into us and get back to the start of my normal show. Where are you from, Jeff? 

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~so technically And this is always,~ uh,~ an issue whenever I travel internationally.

Jeff Riber: I was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Sometimes for whatever reason, I think I was born in Greenville. We only lived there for a year. And then my mom is actually from Jacksonville, Florida. So we moved back to Jacksonville,~ uh,~ after they had, I'm the oldest of three. So after my parents had their first kid, my mom talked, my dad, he's from the like Chicago, Illinois area and the coming back into back to Jacksonville.

Jeff Riber: So as early as I can remember, Jacksonville. Yeah. Okay. I grew up [00:07:00] here, went to school in Virginia for four years, Liberty University. And then where'd you go? Where'd you go to high school locally? Locally. I went to 

Tracy Hayes: university Christian all the way through. That's why you went back over there to coach. 

Jeff Riber: So we talked briefly before the podcast that I had two years as a head varsity basketball coach while also,~ uh,~ running a real estate brokerage.

Jeff Riber: And I was awful. I was just maybe the bottom 10 percent of high school coaches in Jacksonville. There's a lot of great coaches locally. I was not one of them though. ~Uh, ~but yeah, that was how that 

Tracy Hayes: there's, I've had, I have to go back and, and,~ uh,~ look it up, but I've had numerous people on the show that went to Liberty.

Jeff Riber: I, I'm not exactly sure what's in the 

Tracy Hayes: water, but I could, you have a good alumni group here there. I 

Jeff Riber: probably have like that. I personally know. I bet there's 20 people that live in Jacksonville that went to Liberty. Yeah. At least 

Tracy Hayes: maybe, maybe, maybe if I have had three, I've had four on the show already.

Tracy Hayes: What, what brought you to Liberty? What was it? Does it, was it the best basketball scholarship or, I mean, we know he played ball there. What brought you there? 

Jeff Riber: So I actually [00:08:00] walked on. So there were a couple of different things going at the time. One, I had some friends that had gone there and had great experiences to sort of looking for a Christian school.

Jeff Riber: And then three, I wanted to play division one basketball. I had this in my head for some reason. That I wasn't going to be satisfied if I played, you know, division two or an AI or whatever, which I probably in hindsight should have done that would have been,~ uh,~ much more playing time for me. So I went up to Liberty, ended up walking on to the team and it was a lot of fun.

Jeff Riber: I'm glad I did it. We were playing, you know, ~Uh, ~we played Duke and Iowa and St. Joseph's and,~ uh,~ Clemson and, you know, just this roster of ACC traveling around in that area that,~ uh,~ I wouldn't have had that experience at another smaller school. So it was a lot of fun, right? 

Tracy Hayes: Awesome. So, ~uh, ~how far did Liberty make it in the 2004 March Madness?

Jeff Riber: Yeah. So we won our conference tournament. We went to the big dance and we got beat by a lot. I don't know. You could probably, it's like 25 I think. But here, here was the kicker though, is,~ uh,~ I was getting garbage minutes in those days. And [00:09:00] so we're down by a lot at the end of the game. I get into the game and I remember this guy sitting behind our bench, like on the front row, we're playing up at the HSBC center in Buffalo, New York.

Jeff Riber: And he is yelling at me because I was the type of kid that if I got in the game at the end of the game. I'm shooting every time I touch the ball. And so I did first, first possession was a quick one of those guys. Yes, I was. And this guy screaming, screaming at me to hit a three because the spread was 26 and a half and we were down like 28 and we hit a three and we covered the spread and he was so excited.

Jeff Riber: And I'm thinking, what kind of degenerate is this guy betting on a 26 and a half point spread? Like find another game to gamble on. Anyways, so yeah, it was, it was a good time. 

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~it must've been nice to win the conference. I mean, I think,~ uh,~ you know, I look back and the guys, I walked on at the Citadel, I didn't last that long because I, my, my grades plummeted, you know, going to military college, South Carolina, playing football at the same time.

Tracy Hayes: You're, you're, you're going. It was too much. ~Uh, ~and then keep the grade. So I dropped [00:10:00] football. But knowing a lot of guys here locally, one of my classmates that went on to win the Southern Conference eventually, our senior year, what playing at the collegiate level, I mean, even in high school, you know, today is obviously that's where some kids have a chance, even less obviously have the ability to play at a division one school.

Tracy Hayes: But, you know, what you learn in the work ethic,~ uh,~ determination, the pain, the suffering that you go through physically, you know, you're pushing yourself every day because you're competing against the Dukes, you know, at least trying to stay in the game anyway, right? 

Jeff Riber: Yeah. So for me, a, I did love basketball, in zooming out and taking it from more of a 30, 000 foot view now and thinking about what I would want for my kids in athletics, you hit the nail on the head that,~ um,~ what you get.

Jeff Riber: In having a schedule in,~ uh,~ you know, being dedicated to something and developing a worth work ethic and,~ uh,~ [00:11:00] functioning with all of your teammates and navigating those waters like all of these skill sets were so helpful in life that at the time I maybe didn't really realize, right? How helpful they were going to be, but so thankful for it now, and something that I wanna pass along to, you know, not just my kids, but anybody, you know, family, friends, nephews, nieces, whatever, that hey, if you can go participate in a sport and be good at it, don't think that you need to play professionally.

Jeff Riber: Like, sure everybody wants to do that, that'd be great, but the numbers just aren't. With you, you know, the odds aren't in your favor,~ uh,~ but if, if you can pick up all of those little nuanced things, the intangibles,~ uh,~ to use as you grow your career, grow your family, whatever the case may be. Oh man, that's well worth it.

Jeff Riber: I 

Tracy Hayes: mean, I, I had a, an argument. So with, with,~ uh,~ Well, we'll say my wife's family because it definitely wasn't gonna be vibrant was what you were watching,~ uh,~ over Christmas watching,~ uh,~ college football and everything. And they're like, Oh, he was like, Oh, why do these guys do it? They're not going to make the pros.

Tracy Hayes: And, you know, but that's not why they're doing, they love the game. They, they, they love the [00:12:00] game and they want to compete. And then someone say, I want to compete the highest level that I can,~ uh,~ on any given day. But like you said, it is a whole nother education. I mean, it's beyond. I think, you know, with your degree at Liberty and your experience at playing on, you could put them together and some of the things that you use today, you know, what do you use actually from your degree versus what you used on working with the team, discipline, schedule, getting, getting your butt out of bed.

Jeff Riber: And even,~ uh,~ I think back to the coaches that we had at that level, because it is, you know, a higher level of competition and the compensation is good too for these coaches these days at the division one basketball level, you're attracting,~ uh,~ you know, talented, hardworking, dedicated,~ uh,~ people who are pouring into the lives of those players.

Jeff Riber: And so me just being able to observe like how they organized meetings,~ uh,~ how we sort of created objectives for what we wanted to do that season. Like all of that stuff stuck with me and was just [00:13:00] extremely helpful. And it's one of the reasons like our property manager, and he's an agent as well. He played college athletics and you just have that drive and you also have ~Uh, ~sort of this platform for understanding how organizations work.

Jeff Riber: That's just really helpful when you get into business and life. 

Tracy Hayes: and then just the, obviously from the health standpoint and having a lifetime sport and teaching it to your kids and so forth. To, ~ um,~ you know, to downplay sports or really any of the extracurricular activities.

Tracy Hayes: I mean, there's school, but the, the school, yes, we all need to go to school. We're not, we're not down. Let's getting education. Yes, that's, and, and do very well of it, but to, to come home and not have something to look forward to or after school. I'm sure when you were younger, like you were looking forward to practice or the game that night, you know.

Tracy Hayes: that, you know, got your focus. And that was always the carrot, right? You don't do well in school. You can't play. As a matter of 

Jeff Riber: fact, if I Yeah, if I faked sick when I was a kid, it was like, Hey, you can't go to your basketball game. Actually, you know, I feel okay. [00:14:00] We're gonna make it 

Tracy Hayes: exactly. Um So, ~uh, ~going through, you know, if there's a gap in there, fill it in for me.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~you pretty much get out of,~ uh,~ college there and then you're, you're with PHH. That's correct. How, how did you fall into the underwriting world there? 

Jeff Riber: The, the long story short is that almost my entire family was in and around real estate. ~Um, ~so. Granddad, dad, my mom has her real estate license with me now, but,~ um,~ the P H H was connected to the franchise that I was with.

Jeff Riber: And so it was something where I have a degree in finance. ~Uh, ~I'm graduating college. I don't really know what I want to do. I was like, you know, I was just happy playing basketball and going to school. Right. And my dad sort of, ~uh, ~put me in touch with an interview at P H H was like, you know, this is. It's not real estate because I thought I'm not going into real estate.

Jeff Riber: Everybody in my family is in real estate, so I'm going to get as far away as I can. So I went into the mortgage business, right? So, so far away. ~Uh, ~[00:15:00] and it was a desk job. The company was good, but

Jeff Riber: I realized pretty quickly that I was not built for a nine to five cubicle desk job with the obligatory meetings and ~uh, ~you know, the office politics.

Jeff Riber: I just couldn't do it. And so I think I realized that within the first six months, but then it took me about two and a half years to exit from. ~Uh, ~that job and, and really the prompt was, this is 2004, five and six and I had flipped like bought, fixed, sold a couple of houses,~ uh,~ in each of those years and was making well more money flipping houses than I was at my day job.

Jeff Riber: And so I thought, well, you know what? I'm going to go be a real estate investor full time and,~ uh,~ not have this corporate day job anymore. Well, that was getting into 2007. All of a sudden,~ uh,~ thank God I had bought one house at the end of 2006 that I sold sort of middle of 2007 that lasted me through the rest of that year.

Jeff Riber: At the same time I got my real estate license because something fell off when I was selling that last house. It's like it's getting different. And so [00:16:00] fortunately, I didn't buy anything. It's getting a little tougher. Yes. Yes. The market felt softer, slower, just, you know, was not the same. And I was only 24, 25 years old at the time.

Jeff Riber: Not really realizing what's going on. I had no idea what was going on. It was just fortunate that I didn't buy any other investment properties until I started buying it in 2012,~ uh,~ was the next thing I bought and then have kept buying since then. But,~ um,~ 

Tracy Hayes: so you, you out, I mean, was there, you said you were thinking about, did, was that when you just disconnected from PHH when you realized you could flip more?

Tracy Hayes: Yes. So, 

Jeff Riber: so that was 2007 mm-Hmm. , ~uh, ~no, I'm sorry, 2006. There was actually a gap year in there where I more or less,~ uh,~ went back up to Lynchburg, Virginia, where Liberty is. Mm-Hmm. to visit. All of my friends who had turned four years into like six or seven years of school. Yeah. . ~Uh, ~and I actually bought and sold three or four houses up there to like, ~uh, ~make money while I was up there.

Jeff Riber: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So 

Tracy Hayes: it's, were you doing a little sweat equity in 

Jeff Riber: the sweat? I was, yeah. Yes. Yes, I was. And that also was a life lesson learned. Mm-Hmm. . That's,~ um,~ a [00:17:00] I'm horrible. Like I'm just not gifted in a way that I have these friends who you don't like to paint. I can't do anything. Like I'm not even good at painting.

Jeff Riber: I couldn't, I can't match a hole in drywall. I can't fix your faucet. I know what needs to be done. I'm just not good at it. And it, it makes me very jealous. These friends that I have, they can watch a YouTube video and then like replace all the flooring in their house, you know, replace the cabinets. I just, I can't do that.

Jeff Riber: And so I tried to do some of those things early on and realized,~ uh,~ my skillset was much more in the direction of writing a check versus, you know, swinging the hammer. And so I I'd figure that out. And that has aided me because now I walk into a house, look at it, come up with a budget, and then I turn it over to our GC and say, Hey, let me know when it's done, 

Tracy Hayes: then we'll sell it.

Tracy Hayes: So you regularly doing flip when, when they available, when they come out, I'll do two, three, 

Jeff Riber: four year and have a, some investment like rental properties as well. So it's a. a constant flow of, you know, stuff we're buying stuff or selling or stuff I'm buying and selling personally. I 

Tracy Hayes: mean, you know, I've had,~ uh,~ lately numerous,~ um,~ [00:18:00] actually ladies on that were, you know, ~um, ~you're doing, but the key thing they felt is obviously they're not going in and they're not doing the sweat equity part,~ uh,~ other than some, maybe some small cosmetic things they might do.

Tracy Hayes: But at the importance, especially in our market in Florida, it has a reputation of contractors not showing up, you know, having that contact, like, like you're talking about how important is, you know, in your flips and the success of them to have the reliable, you know, relationship. 

Jeff Riber: So A, of the utmost importance and B, let me not act like it was simple and easy to get there.

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~I certainly had plenty of stop starts in the world of hiring contractors. I've lost money, I've had contractors that didn't show up to jobs, contractors that had terrible jobs that we had to redo. ~Um, ~you know, because I probably bought, I don't know. 80, 90 houses personally over the years at this point.

Jeff Riber: So I've made tons of mistakes. ~Um, ~but the, the thing I love about real estate brokerage is that real estate brokerage allows me to be sitting on top of real [00:19:00] estate investments. And that has what Has been so great personally investing over the years. Like I don't really put my money in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, anything, because I don't understand it.

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~but I do understand residential real estate in Northeast Florida. Actually, my brother jokes. It's like Jeff's idea of asset diversification is Rental properties on different sides of town. Like that's as diversified as he is,~ uh,~ in Jacksonville, Florida. But,~ uh,~ yeah, so lots of mistakes made. No, I, 

Tracy Hayes: it's been something my wife and I will, cause we have, we have several rental properties.

Tracy Hayes: We are flipping a condo right now. ~Um, ~my wife is safe with the condo and in the units that we are. Cause she, you know, taking care of the outside and all that stuff. We, we know what's the condo where she knows what they're going to rent for because they allow short term rentals. But one thing I.

Tracy Hayes: ~Um, ~the people don't realize as we have two of the units are owned by my our IRA rollover of years and a lot of people, you know, you talked a lot of financial advisors like, Oh, I don't think that's because there's only a handful of companies in [00:20:00] the country that do it because it is so, but, you know, ~uh, ~equity trust is the one we use out of Ohio.

Tracy Hayes: It is smooth. ~Uh, ~I mean, they have an app and everything, you know, cause you, you are not allowed to. Pay the contractor and then get reimbursed from your IRA that IRA has to pay the contractor But there's it's not that difficult to just stay within the guidelines but if you got you're sitting on a right roll over IRA and you don't you're afraid of the stock market or your Things are going there I invested at the right time ~Uh, ~you know, recently, you know, ~uh, ~three years ago, I think it's been now,~ uh,~ since we did that and because those values of those units have just, you know, gone up so 

Jeff Riber: much, you're, you're way ahead of the curve,~ uh,~ with self directed IRA investing.

Jeff Riber: And that's something that I was just turned on to really in the last probably two or three years as well,~ uh,~ that I converted what was the PHH, uh, 401k into an IRA into then finally a self directed IRA years ago that there wasn't a lot of money there, but there's. You know, it's inside of this tax protected,~ uh,~ environment or under that umbrella.

Jeff Riber: And so I would go do [00:21:00] flips with my self directed IRA. I've done hard money loans with self directed IRA money. ~Uh, ~and if I could encourage anybody listening or watching to do two things, one go Google and educate yourself on self directed IRAs. And then the other one is the 1031 exchange that I've done a bunch of those over the years where you're also sheltering.

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~your gains from the IRS. ~Uh, ~you know, we all want to pay our taxes, but,~ uh,~ we don't want to pay more taxes than we need to. So, so those two things are great tools for real estate investors to make sure that you're not,~ uh,~ taking two steps forward and one step back every time you do something in the investing room.

Jeff Riber: Yep. 

Tracy Hayes: I'll just namedrop John Bowen, B O W E N. He has been on the podcast. He was one of my first guests, but he's doing a lot now. I see him a lot more on Instagram, definitely on LinkedIn. But if you do go on YouTube and put Equity Trust or John Bowen in there, there's an education library on YouTube that'll 

Jeff Riber: tell you all about it.

Jeff Riber: And here's the thing. It can be an intimidating world to try and get into because. I hate paperwork, and it is a lot of paperwork to [00:22:00] maintain a self directed IRA to get a 1031 exchange done. But you don't need to know how to do it. It's like, I just need to know sort of functionally what needs to happen.

Jeff Riber: And then the paperwork all goes to the IRA administrator or the 1031 exchange. ~Uh, ~they've 

Tracy Hayes: really made it a no brainer and you can,~ uh,~ you were saying like you, you had a small 401 roll over initially,~ uh,~ it's a non recourse loan is what you need. So if you have enough for the down payment. ~Uh, ~and then you can get a non recourse loan,~ uh,~ which are, which are out there to borrow if you're doing a flip and get your first flips until you have an account where you can just pay cash for the house.

Tracy Hayes: That's right. 

Jeff Riber: Yeah. And, or what I did early on with some of those was partner with other investors. Like just because I'm too maybe lazy or impatient to wait on a loan because, you know, you're, you're still getting a mortgage. It was like, I had other friends who wanted to invest. And so I partnered the self directed IRA, their money and,~ uh,~ we, we did the job.

Jeff Riber: So yeah, that's great. 

Tracy Hayes: So dig into when do you become a, you know, you cut the umbilical cord with [00:23:00] PHH when you become a full fledged agent here. We, so seven into eight. 

Jeff Riber: Yep. 2007 I had my license. I don't think I did my first deal or had my first closing as a real estate agent until 2008. ~Um, ~one of the, I think my first,~ Uh,~ they won't be listening because they live in like California now, but,~ uh,~ one of my first deals was a Queens Harbor listing that was a referral that didn't actually close until later.

Jeff Riber: But I can remember, I don't remember what we listed at originally, but at the time. The market was losing value to the tune of like one and a half percent per month So every month when we're looking back, you know, you've got to do this over a period of months to realize what has happened but ~Uh, ~what was worth a million dollars all of a sudden we turn around and it's worth 900 all of a sudden we turn around Again, it's worth 800 and you're like what is happening?

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~so that was when I was getting into the business and I you know, I don't know how but I did end up doing deals I forget how much volume it was in 08 or 09, but enough to keep the lights on, keep me motivated and sort of, ~uh, ~addicted me [00:24:00] to real estate. Like I really enjoy it and still do. And I'm just really thankful that I'm in the business and still able to do this on a daily basis and got through that time.

Jeff Riber: ~Um, ~You know, with my shirt still on, like, because there are a lot of people that went out of 

Tracy Hayes: where were you, where were you finding business? What, what, what kept you alive? Someone mentoring you at that time to kind of, so 

Jeff Riber: my license was with ERA Davis and Lynn at the time. I'm still local. ~Uh, ~Jim Lynn and Andrew Lynn are there.

Jeff Riber: Carol Davis is now retired. But,~ uh,~ so Jim was helpful in that regard. And then I had an uncle Mack Hefner who he was in the business that was,~ uh, um, ~Took over the franchise from him, which was era having a realty in 2011 so yes, I had this network of 

Tracy Hayes: people that went to sit it off, but go ahead those are my cousins 

Jeff Riber: actually.

Jeff Riber: Yeah Yeah, and so They were helpful and there was A little bit of relocation business back in like 08, 09, that was in,~ uh,~ like USAA, Navy federal,~ um,~ Cardus, if you remember that name, they've since changed names, but it's a [00:25:00] relocation network that I was getting a little bit of that. But then honestly, a lot of it was just, I didn't know any better.

Jeff Riber: And a couple of my first deals were this apartment complex over on the water at San Jose and university where I just called every owner and asked them if they wanted to sell their house. And I ended up with like, Four deals off of those phone calls in that first year because Somebody sold a house and then they bought something and then they had a friend and that friend sold and bought something and it was a number of instances like that where I was just beating the pavement and fortunately it worked out.

Jeff Riber: It doesn't always play out that way. Sometimes you do the work and in real estate you don't get paid. ~Uh, ~but there was enough there to keep me going and, and, and doing a lot of, especially back in those days, expired listing, like phone calls and marketing, a little bit of for sale by owner stuff. 

Tracy Hayes: well, the market was changing there as the market has changed here in the last 18 months.

Tracy Hayes: Like, I mean, we get, you know, the rates are so low. I think one of the,~ uh,~ big shortages we're not having now is the people just moving [00:26:00] from one community to another locally. Like, Hey, I want to go live at Naukati or Hey, I bought in Naukati and I don't like it here. I want to move away. ~Uh, ~you don't have that going on because.

Tracy Hayes: They are sitting on 3 percent interest rates and they don't want 6, 7 interest rates. So that's, that's kind of shut off. So the today you're, you know, to survive, you're, you're having to find hopefully more people moving in or. You know, there's a death or divorce or something like that, where they're forced to sell, to 

Jeff Riber: recreate yourself now.

Jeff Riber: Yeah. 

Tracy Hayes: And,~ uh,~ it wasn't, it wasn't as easy as trying to, you know, like you say, sitting there and calling every one that owned a condo and heck that's good though, 

Jeff Riber: it's not a real scalable way to do business. Like we're, we're doing a lot more,~ uh,~ strategic advertising and marketing these days, we have like inside sales agents that make those phone calls, but,~ uh,~ you know, what.

Jeff Riber: It works, 

Tracy Hayes: but that's still, I mean, how many units were in the condo complex? I mean, and you got four deals out of it. Think about calculate the number of phone calls. Was there a couple hundred and you got four deals? That's pretty good. Yeah, 

Jeff Riber: [00:27:00] probably 300, maybe tops. Cause it's not a very big complex, probably less than that.

Jeff Riber: Probably 200. That's a great return 

Tracy Hayes: on investment. 

Jeff Riber: Don't know that I could go repeat that as a matter of fact, I've never repeated that event, like four deals out of one, like cold call base. But,~ um,~ anyway, if you 

Tracy Hayes: think about it now, would you agree that the,~ um,~ Right now, there are a lot of people who are sitting on equity.

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~there was someone posted the other day that the average home has 300, 000 in equity. I don't know where that stat came from. It was just something I saw someone post on social, on social media somewhere. But there are a lot of people sitting on, on equity. And then of course, everyone's saying, you know, the credit card debt is up, right?

Tracy Hayes: So. And I don't think our economics are clear. ~Uh, ~I don't think we're getting clear numbers. I think there are some sectors that are from a job standpoint. Because I think right now anyone, anyone that's going to be forced to sell is, you know, divorce, death, divorce, or obviously they lose their job and they can't afford the home anymore, right?

Tracy Hayes: They're going to sell. ~Um, ~that making those phone calls right now, you may have some people sitting on a lot of equity saying, you know what? Yeah, [00:28:00] I, I really can't afford to live here. I need, I'll take that 250, 000, 300, 000 and,~ uh,~ you know, go put on a smaller palace, maybe move outside of town or whatever.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. And again, 

Jeff Riber: for anybody that's newer in the business,~ uh,~ take that as an encouragement that there. Is still business out there and there are ways to go find it. Like if you'll sit around and strategically think about who do we want to help? How do we want to help them? What's the path for finding that list?

Jeff Riber: If you will, like there's so many services where you can build a list. And then,~ uh,~ what are we going to use to communicate with them? Are we going to mail them,~ uh,~ try and hit them with social media ads? Are we going to call them, text them, email them? Like there's just so many things that will work. If you do it consistently and persistently over time, like you don't just typically show up and,~ uh,~ you know, send out a couple of emails and have a listing or a buyer from that.

Jeff Riber: It takes time and patience and energy and effort,~ uh,~ to see the results, 

Tracy Hayes: right? So your progression here, you're, when do you start moving into [00:29:00] leadership? And the brokerages. 

Jeff Riber: So 2011,~ uh,~ was, was when my, again, long story short,~ uh,~ uncle looked at me, he had essentially a real estate brokerage that he was either going to probably shut down or I say self effectively like give to me because there, you know, there wasn't a whole lot going on with it at the time.

Jeff Riber: And so that was the franchise that,~ uh,~ I owned and operated from 2011 to 2020 last year, 23 middle of last year and essentially just realized that I wasn't a great fit, like personally in our organization as a group,~ uh,~ for a franchise, like franchises work for some people, they don't for others. And I was in the latter group.

Jeff Riber: I just wasn't a great fit for it. And so that was why. We broke off, but,~ um,~ we do sales and management have done so since 2011. We've sort of steadily grown each year. ~Uh,~ 

Tracy Hayes: I don't think I've ever talked about that on a show,~ um,~ from that sample, but I don't think I had someone as close into,~ um,~ the ownership.

Tracy Hayes: [00:30:00] of the franchise. I've had brokers and so forth, but you, what is it you saw in the franchise that wasn't your cup of tea basically? Sure. So you're 

Jeff Riber: paying a portion of every dollar that you earn to the franchise. Right. ~Uh, ~and essentially we looked at what the offering was,~ uh,~ and what their services were provided for the money that we were paying them.

Jeff Riber: And. And when it came down to it, we're like, you know, we're not really using much, if any of that, but we're paying them, what was at the time, a fair amount of money. So the thought was, you know, can we take these funds that we're paying to them and redirect them in a better way? Could I be a better person?

Jeff Riber: Better,~ uh,~ investor of those funds into our business than they are. ~Um, ~and that was how the decision was made was, you know, here, we're spending this money. Are we getting a return on it? Right. And, and really, from my perspective, we weren't getting the return then. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, the. ~Uh, ~so we, we've had in the area, I know a couple of different,~ uh,~ new franchises, some of them have evolved, some of them are older, just weren't [00:31:00] here,~ um,~ you know, you have,~ uh,~ you know, obviously,~ uh,~ in the last whatever years, obviously the EXP, Reel, those type of,~ uh,~ platforms come up,~ um,~ but from, from your more of a,~ um,~ traditional ~um,~ State office, my boss likes to, she likes to call it traditional,~ um,~ office.

Tracy Hayes: She thinks those are the ones that are going to survive through this just because,~ uh,~ you know, we're, everyone's been chasing the split, right? How much, you know, what am I going to get out of the deal, but not realizing the value that the broker will dig into that. But in this case, you didn't see the value from the.

Tracy Hayes: ship coming into the, coming into the franchise because they weren't staying in front of, in front of the curve and with technology changing as fast as it is, that's how curve you got me. You gotta be running all the time. Yeah. Well, and that's a lot of 

Jeff Riber: what,~ um,~ whether it's exp real or traditional, you know, franchise model, a lot of what you're paying for is their tech stack.

Jeff Riber: Like CRM,~ uh,~ you know, marketing software,~ uh,~ [00:32:00] you know, whatever else that was a fair portion of what they're paying, of what you're paying for as a broker owner. ~Uh, ~and I suppose there's some education element to that as well, but I essentially looked at all of those things. And. in some cases we already had different solutions than what they were offering.

Jeff Riber: And in other cases I thought we could go find better solutions and I'm a bit like, I don't know, my wife would probably say I'm stubborn in particular. And so, ~um, ~in, in business that was just the direction that I wanted to go. I was, I thought, you know, I could do a better job for our group of finding the right tech stack and educational offerings and, you know, marketing, marketing offerings versus this.

Jeff Riber: group that's 

Tracy Hayes: far away. And the education side, what is, you know, ~Um, uh, ~you know, ~uh, ~Keller Williams always comes to mind because I think they're probably predominantly, you know, they hire a lot of new, you know, newer agents and they do train them up and they pour into them from a training standpoint.

Tracy Hayes: But when I look across, you know, every day we get emails, whether it's from NIFAR or the St. Augustine board [00:33:00] or, you know, some,~ uh,~ a mortgage loan officer or title companies offering. trainings on contract, what other training that's not already being offered is really that large franchise giving you, 

Jeff Riber: you hit the nail on the head.

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~and,~ uh,~ and we don't it pursuit now on our own to have trained figured out because 

Jeff Riber: I, like you,~ uh,~ looked around it just a very robust,~ uh,~ bunch of educational opportunities from the association of realtors, from mortgage workers, title companies, everybody's willing to give education in these particular categories.

Jeff Riber: And as a broker working with agents, I'm sort of like, Hey, here's a dozen books that I've read that were instrumental in helping me sell more houses, build my business, invest in real estate, whatever the case may be, read those, let's talk about them. And then let's see how we can apply them to your situation.

Jeff Riber: Right. Sitting in a, like, me offering,~ uh,~ some sort of classroom setting for an hour once a week. I just don't see where that would be a huge benefit. And so I don't really do it. And that [00:34:00] was sort of the thing. A lot of it was virtual learning from franchise. I'm like, I don't see where anybody's really 

Tracy Hayes: benefiting from that.

Tracy Hayes: Well, you said you had a core group of people with you too, that also have nearly 20 years each in the business as well. When it comes to replacing that, you know, that,~ uh,~ franchise provided education just by having. Experience people that they can call on,~ uh,~ you'll pick up the phone. Hey, I had a contract issue.

Tracy Hayes: Have you dealt with this before? I mean, how, I mean, beneficial has that been just, you know, having those people in the office 

Jeff Riber: notice. ~Um, ~and we've got,~ uh,~ several in our group who are always willing to share, always willing to help. So very beneficial. And to your point, like some of the things you're just not going to learn in a classroom that come up in a real estate deal that are.

Jeff Riber: transactionally oriented. ~Uh, ~you just got to go out and beat the streets and, you know, trip and fall a couple of times before you figure out, Oh, okay, this is how this works with a real estate 

Tracy Hayes: deal. So, well, ~um, ~I had, I think it was,~ uh,~ It must have been Matthew, Matthew [00:35:00] Rathbun, who was at RE Bar Camp. ~Um, ~he speaks nationally.

Tracy Hayes: He's out of,~ uh,~ Fredericksburg, Virginia, so he's up there. ~Um,~ and, but I remember, because I was listening to the podcast, because I went out on the Apple, you know, I was listening to the car yesterday. One of the important things he said, though, is to schedule into your day. Some form of education. Now that could be how can AI help me out with my, my business and put 20, 30 minutes a day in this schedule talking about education, how important, especially for some of these newer agents, someone getting started, that they are blocking time to, you know, take a class at NIFAR or go over to one of these, you know, lender provided education and have a free lunch type of thing to be involved and be finding those things and putting them in their schedule.

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. 

Jeff Riber: So a, you've got to be intentional about it. And then B, I just think that in 2024, there's so much opportunity to with audible, with podcasts, like you can go find [00:36:00] a podcast on almost any sort of real estate problem or challenge that you're having,~ uh,~ that would oftentimes be really high level individuals who are talking about it, you know, have been through it, trying to help you out.

Jeff Riber: And so pairing those two things together, I think you can have a stellar real estate education these days without, you know, having to travel or,~ uh,~ be obligated to any sort of classroom environment. ~Um, ~so, yeah, I think that's very important. 

Tracy Hayes: It is important. I think,~ um,~ Engagement is, is one of the things too is,~ um,~ and I think you, you would agree that they've got to be involved in the business, you know, whether, whether it's education,~ uh,~ I mean, how important is it, you know, there's a lot of people don't like to go to the socials and so forth.

Tracy Hayes: Occasionally you do have to show, because I mean, how important, especially in. 21, we talk about this all the time when you're getting 20, 30 offers on the house to look down and see what real estate agents are on the other end. 

Jeff Riber: I know that person. I know they're going to get this deal done and you know, walk just because [00:37:00] the buyer, you know, it or whatever.

Jeff Riber: Yeah, no, that is very important. And I'm not the personality type that loves going to meetups and that sort of thing. And I do like meeting people. I, I don't know, I, it's just weird personality, I guess. But it, is helpful and,~ uh,~ yeah, if you're going to build a career, you need to know the people that you're working with and around.

Jeff Riber: And,~ uh,~ that's an important part of the business, I think. Right. 

Tracy Hayes: All right. So one of my standard,~ uh,~ questions, like I said before show, I like to think, or maybe I said at the beginning of the show, I like to think there's a, there's someone maybe hasn't gotten their license yet that might listen to it, or maybe they're in class, but they haven't signed up with that first brokerage, or you got that other person who, did sign up because their girlfriend works at the whatever brokerage, but they got there and realized,~ uh,~ what do I do next?

Tracy Hayes: Right. How important, and what are some of the questions when you're looking at a brokerage that,~ uh,~ that the agent, the agent needs to be interviewing the broker, the broker, you know, the broker is going to ask some questions, but [00:38:00] you, you're self employed. So you got to choose where you're going to hang your, your, your license at how important and what kind of things they need to find out about that brokerage before they sign up with them.

Tracy Hayes: Sure. Sure. Sure. 

Jeff Riber: So I think the, you know, if you were to Google that question, the types of answers that you would come to center around splits,~ um,~ center around referral fees, how lead flow works. And those are all decent questions. ~Um, ~but I think getting underneath the surface, just the way that if you were,~ uh,~ you know, manager hiring an employee, like how does this person deal with stress?

Jeff Riber: How does this person deal with bad things that happen? ~Um,~ Who, you know, what's their weekly schedule look like? Like stuff that has more nuance to it, I think provides as much value as just knowing how the leads flow and what the splits are. ~Um, ~so I don't know that that's exactly the answer you were looking for necessarily, but, 

Tracy Hayes: well, those are questions when you don't know what to ask, right?

Tracy Hayes: Well, what's my split going to be? Okay. Well that, I mean, it's like someone calling me [00:39:00] and more so I say. What's your rate today? Because they don't know what else to ask. That's the only question they have. And to dig in, like you said, the,~ um,~ you know, I think it's one of the things that I've found,~ uh,~ in this industry.

Tracy Hayes: I know you have just experienced, everyone does it differently. ~Um, ~and you know, there's some brokers that are proactive as talking, you know, George Greer down in Miami, he was talking how he'll, he's very proactive as a broker. He, someone signs up , under him. He's on their tail. Why? You know, he does a 15 minute phone call on Monday morning.

Tracy Hayes: He wants everybody to be on there. He's going to, he's going to start holding you accountable where some brokers, you know, you sign up and. They're like, Oh, you didn't show up today. Yeah, that's your problem. 

Jeff Riber: There you go. Like, yeah. How do team meetings work? How,~ uh,~ what are your expectations of me as the agent?

Jeff Riber: Yeah. Those are all things that get a little bit more down into the nitty gritty on what the experience is going to be like working for them. ~Um, ~and I mean the nice thing, I say nice thing, maybe it's not a great thing, but about real estate brokerages. You don't [00:40:00] have like a non-compete. So if you get into a situation where it's just not a fit,~ um,~ it's an easy exit, which is fortunate, unfortunate, depending on who you are in that situation.

Jeff Riber: Mm-Hmm, . ~Uh, ~but I, I think that you, it's not like you are committing your life to that,~ uh,~ situation or person or company. So if it's not the right fit, you can always redirect in a different way. 

Tracy Hayes: How important is it for that agent? ~Um, ~and you, you've probably experienced, you probably have found yourself several times in, in the years, but finding, you know, as the market changes.

Tracy Hayes: What, what, what is your favorite way of marketing, right? What is it that you do that you like to do that? You're not, you know, if you don't like cold calling, you're like, I don't even want to get out of bed in the morning because I don't want to go make those calls. Right. How important is the, to find that?

Tracy Hayes: And then to go back to the broker question, there's some brokers that are pretty good at helping you find 

Jeff Riber: that. Yep. You know, so this is a constant debate I have with,~ uh,~ Matt, our property manager, Matt is, and he. Does sales as well, [00:41:00] and he does not like cold calling, whereas I don't mind it. Like I'll call anybody anytime, try and strike up a conversation.

Jeff Riber: Like I'll just, that's my routine and that's fine. Different sources. And I get business that way. He hates it. However, Matt will go to some industry happy hour. Or,~ uh,~ like a networking meetup and I despise having to do those kind of things. So he and I are totally different. And we talk about that with other agents in the office.

Jeff Riber: Like there are more, there's more than one way to go out and get business. And so what, you know, what's your personality type? You may even get into like disc profiles and that sort of thing that you can figure out what your bent is and no matter what, it's still going to be work. But it will be less work if you otherwise enjoy that type of thing.

Jeff Riber: If you enjoy the networking group, then you're willing to go to two of those a week. ~Um, ~versus if you hate networking groups, that would, I just wouldn't want to get out of bed in the morning if I had to go to networking groups all the time. Like that would not be my cup of tea. Right. So. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, you said you, you,~ uh,~ only work 40 hours a week, [00:42:00] but isn't real estate, real estate is a lifestyle.

Tracy Hayes: I mean, you are, you know, like you said, what is it you like to do? Some people can bounce around all day long and you know, there's, there's some,~ uh,~ well, you can go online and listen to some of these coaches. It's how many conversations you have a day, right? Here's some of the biggest,~ uh, uh, ~real estate offices.

Tracy Hayes: In town here, they want to have 20 substantial conversations a day, you know, talk to somebody about real estate, have a conversation, literally, you know, whatever, how many minutes that is, or, you know, type of thing, have a conversation with them and obviously start building relationships. So are you really only working 40 hours a week or you have, you just made it your.

Tracy Hayes: So 

Jeff Riber: good, good question. And I don't know if it was conscious or unconscious, but when I got into the business, I did not want to have to worry about either trying to convince and compel my friend group to work with me or talking to a person in the grocery store about real estate or at dinner about real estate or at my son's baseball practice or daughter's dance [00:43:00] recital.

Jeff Riber: I don't, if somebody else brings it up, I'm happy to talk about it because I love real estate, but I rarely if ever in making some sort of pitch while I'm at a baseball practice to the other parent that's there. So I really don't like,~ Um,~ operationally when I'm dialed in at the office and I'm trying to generate business, that's when I'm going.

Jeff Riber: And then when I'm done, I'm more or less done. Now again, somebody wants to talk about it. They've got a house to sell or, you know, want to buy something great, but it's not going to be me prompting it. 

Tracy Hayes: Typically. How important is it, you know, for especially these agents are, you know. running, running, getting their business started, that everybody they run into knows what they do.

Tracy Hayes: Now that can be done several ways. I think,~ uh,~ Jordan Farrow, she, she said it clearly. And I, and actually,~ um,~ Erica,~ um,~ Erica, your last name is slipping my mind, but I see your face, but they're talking when they go to the ballpark, they're wearing some sort of t shirt that says something about real estate.

Tracy Hayes: So everybody, even though they're [00:44:00] not having that conversation, they all know. Johnny's mom is a real estate agent. Like there are great real 

Jeff Riber: estate agents who do more business than I do, who are more in that mode where they're ready 

Tracy Hayes: to let everybody know I'm in real 

Jeff Riber: estate. There's nothing wrong with that.

Jeff Riber: It's just. not,~ uh,~ I don't have the energy for it, I guess, is what it is at this stage in the game. So no, there, 

Jeff Riber: there are plenty of real estate agents who just crush it because they're a part of the parent teacher organization at school and everybody knows that that's what they do and they get a dozen deals a year out of that,~ uh,~ group.

Jeff Riber: And that's awesome. I love that. And we have agents. That are like that,~ uh,~ in our group. And I love that for them. I just know that that's not, that's not true. It's not me. ~Uh, ~this stage in the game. 

Tracy Hayes: How, you know, we didn't, we kind of ran over, you know, your, your initial part there, but,~ um,~ whether you had one or again, agents coming in, whether they have,~ uh,~ a mentor [00:45:00] or a coach and, you know, I think it's important if I was getting in the business today, you know, as an agent to find one of those experienced agents, because I find everyone that I've had on a show, a top producer, they're willing to pour it.

Tracy Hayes: Anything you ask him anything, they'll pour, they'll pour into. They want to tell you how they do it. I mean, it's, it's kind of a, you know, ~um, ~in a little ego boosted to let, you know, you're successful and share what you think. Hopefully that they take something from it and they have success with it. Right.

Tracy Hayes: But to have that,~ uh,~ a mentor or a coach,~ uh,~ with you and whether, you know, whether it's accountability, cause that's, that's kind of the number one thing. What does a coach do? Well, they'll hold you accountable, but someone you could just confide your business.

Jeff Riber: So that's 

Jeff Riber: one of the things that I love about the real estate industry is it seems like it's just built in like it's in the genetics of real estate agents to be helpful to those around them, even though, you know, at some level,~ uh,~ we're all competitive, but at least in my experience, I don't know if that's the case everywhere, [00:46:00] but in Northeast Florida, and in even the franchises that I've been a part of have all been,~ uh,~ Extremely helpful if you ask for help.

Jeff Riber: And so anybody watching that's new in the business that's looking for help, ask like people more often than not are willing to do it. ~Um, ~and then the next level of that would be if you're hiring a coach,~ uh,~ or a mentor to hold you accountable and be more strategic, that'd be something that's. ~Um, ~and that's usually worthwhile as well.

Jeff Riber: But starting out, if you don't want to spin those funds in that direction, there's probably somebody within arm's reach that you could ask and they would be willing to and able to,~ uh,~ sort of push you forward. 

Tracy Hayes: So we'll go back to the broker thing, you know, cause I asked this question commonly to get everyone's opinion on it and the consensus is, but I don't.

Tracy Hayes: You know, talking to a lot of the agents and how they got started, very few of them, you know, reached out as that person in licensing, or even just thinking about getting into the business, thinking of it being a business and going out and [00:47:00] reaching out to some of those. Top real estate agents saying, Hey, can I have a cup of coffee with you?

Tracy Hayes: What's this business like? You know, ~uh, ~although, you know, I encourage, and I mentioned it all the time, because if you're out there thinking about, or you're out there and I think you would agree, if you're stuck right now, you don't feel you're moving forward and you're like, man, am I in the right business?

Tracy Hayes: I really like real estate, but I'm just not moving forward to, to give you a call or to give you one of your top agents that pursuit a call and go have coffee with them and talk about what, what you guys are 

Jeff Riber: doing. Yep. Yep. And, and I think you've got to strike a balance too, as the agent where,~ uh,~ sometimes I'll observe that,~ uh,~ real estate agents, just a cup of coffee.

Jeff Riber: You want to sit around and chat, shoot the breeze and have a good time. And that's fine, but it's not helping you earn more money in the real estate business. So I think you also have to be dialed in on, okay, let, let me let this person in and give them real authentic, like. challenges that I'm having or problems that I'm facing so that they can give me a response that's helpful.

Jeff Riber: And then hopefully, you know, I am, you know, willing and have enough [00:48:00] humility to put those items into place and really change my business. Cause that's the other thing is, you know, just because you're getting the feedback and the mentorship doesn't mean that you're implementing what's being said. So I think that's the, thing too, and I've observed that in myself over the years.

Jeff Riber: Like, am I really listening to people that are trying to help me or Am I just sort of giving it a lip service and I'm you know Not going out and doing what I should be doing. Right? So 

Tracy Hayes: right. What are that? So you use the word challenge there a second ago What? What are some of the challenges that you're seeing some of the agents having?

Tracy Hayes: I guess, really, they just go back 12, 18 months. What are, what are the challenges of them? Because, I mean, we know there's a lot of them are falling out. ~Um, ~even, even some that were experienced or maybe, you know, did well in 21,~ um,~ you know, actually were able to get their offers accepted and so forth. And now, all of a sudden, what challenges are they having?

Tracy Hayes: And, I mean, how are you, I'm assuming, statistically, you probably have a few in your office. What are [00:49:00] some of the things you're trying to do to Yep. Keep them moving. 

Jeff Riber: So the numbers are simple,~ uh,~ from top to bottom tops, like summer of 2021 autumn was probably the end of last year, give or take for total transactions.

Jeff Riber: We're off like 30 to 35 percent in the Northeast Florida, whether you're looking at like just single family homes or the whole kit and caboodle somewhere in that 30, 30 to 35 percent range, we're down in terms of total transactions. And the real estate agent count hasn't really changed all that much, still right around 12, 000.

Jeff Riber: agents in the business. So there's much less to go around with the same number of people still still out there doing deals. And so that's the challenge. There's just not as much to do. And so the conversation that I have on a weekly basis almost now is like, why do I have this listing that's not selling?

Jeff Riber: ~Um, ~and the answer is the market's not the same as it was a year ago or two years ago. And so the, Like coaching or response that I give is multifaceted. Like there's, there's not one like silver bullet that I can give you. That's going to make your listing sell like [00:50:00] a, you need to be coaching your seller that the market's different now and B they may be overpriced.

Jeff Riber: C yeah, let's step up our game with photography, videography. Like we're making phone calls to neighbors. We're calling agents that have sold in the community. Like there's things that you can do. And I'm much more about inputs over outputs. So let's focus on the things that we can do. All of what I just mentioned.

Jeff Riber: And at the end of the day, the house is gonna sell or not. Like, if you did everything right and the house didn't sell due to market conditions, it's not really your fault as the agent. Like, if you're educating the seller, we're doing our part on marketing and advertising. Like, we can't change the market.

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~at large control of the 

Tracy Hayes: controllables. 

Jeff Riber: That's exactly right. So, so that's usually what I'm coaching on. And at the end of the day, if there's,~ uh,~ you know, fewer houses selling, you're going to have to work a little bit harder, like, ~uh, ~to, to get that,~ uh,~ sort of appetite for work going in the morning, you may want to take a cold shower, like get the hard thing knocked out first.

Jeff Riber: And then the rest of the 

Tracy Hayes: day is exactly right. 

Tracy Hayes: Well, I mean, Look, [00:51:00] the twist in the list,~ uh,~ to change over into listings, what you're talking about, a couple questions there,~ um,~ with that challenge that you're talking about, what are you finding if you were to narrow it down to one or two things, that's, that's probably the reason what, what, what are your, what are your guesstimates?

Tracy Hayes: What are those two reasons being? 

Jeff Riber: I mean, one of the primary reasons is almost always a disconnect between the seller's expectation of what they're going to get and then the market reality of what they're going to get. And so you're probably overpriced. The historical real estate wisdom is that if you're not within about 5 percent of what somebody's willing to pay, you're not going to see showings that are legitimate or consistent and you're not going to get offers.

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~and so if you're 10 to 15 percent overpriced, you're, you're sitting there. ~Um, ~and then the other thing is that we just, you know, I've gotten a little bit of custom as listing agents in the last couple of years, just sitting on our hands and letting it come to us. And so, ~um, ~I was having this conversation on the way here, like.

Jeff Riber: How could you be proactive? Let's call other agents that have listings in the neighborhood to see what [00:52:00] their activity looks like. ~Um, ~let's go get a list of all of the neighbors in the community to reach out and say, Hey, do you have any friends or family that are moving into the neighborhood? Let's call agents that have sold in the neighborhood in the last year and see if they have any one that's moving.

Jeff Riber: So there's always something that you can do. And so I don't know that that's a reason or cause for it not selling, but you can be active as the listing agent. And I'd say that a reason or cause is 

Tracy Hayes: probably are you do, are you doing a little more, some staging, being a little more due diligence on prepping that home before you 

Jeff Riber: actually put the sign yet?

Jeff Riber: So, yeah, no, if, if we're going like before we hit the market. Absolutely. And it's like we've leveled up just, you know, personally and us as a group or company,~ um,~ our game for staging, photography, videography, you know, we're including floor plans and walkthroughs and,~ uh,~ imploring like professional writers on descriptions now.

Jeff Riber: And this depends on the price point. Like you can't just grab any. You know, 200, 000 listing and go, Hey, I'm going to dump 2, [00:53:00] 000 into the marketing of this thing. Like it's not real intelligent at that point. But,~ uh,~ you know, our price listing, absolutely willing to spend the money. And we, we have sort of a threshold or, or floor for like, we're absolutely going to have professional photography on every time.

Jeff Riber: We're absolutely going to have,~ uh,~ you know, an ad budget for spending on social to. out whenever it gets 

Tracy Hayes: listed. Talk a little bit about what, you know, in, in, in your, you know, some occasionally you do have a meeting,~ um,~ but obviously going in and doing that listing presentation is a little different than it was just 24 months ago, 18 months ago, what are some of the things that you're suggesting conversations to set the right expectations, you know, from the lending side, we like.

Tracy Hayes: Talk to people like, you know, talk to the agents say, Hey, you probably because you're competing with new construction and all those benefits, Hey, you probably want to go to the seller initially and say, Hey, you may want to think about offering the incentive up front because they're seeing incentives from the new construction, right?

Tracy Hayes: Talk about how you guys are talking about, you know, [00:54:00] in strategizing when you're going in those listing. 

Jeff Riber: Yep. So I think in order to prep the seller and put them in the mindset for what the market's like, we have a great MLS in that it's connected with, I think it's Domus Analytics is the name of the company that provides all of the market data.

Jeff Riber: And so I can walk in and say, look, you can see this chart where new listings coming on the market is growing rapidly. And new pending sales is actually declining. So what do you think that means for the activity today? As we list the house on your market is going to be the same today that it was a year ago or two years ago.

Jeff Riber: Or do you think it's going to be a little bit different? And then from there is the launching point for,~ uh,~ let's take a little bit of time to have a pre listing inspection done, fix any repairs, get the staging squared away, get a professional cleaning done. Then we can get our photographer and videographer in.

Jeff Riber: So that when we hit the market,~ um,~ if anybody sells in your neighborhood area and price point, it's going to be you. Like we can't make your house sell ultimately, but we can line all [00:55:00] of the dominoes up so that they fall down in our favor. Yeah. 

Tracy Hayes: Yeah. The,~ um,~ with the NAR lawsuit, I've taught, you know, again, we're talking about Patty Ketchum earlier and,~ uh,~ I don't know how well you've been, you know, if you've been staying abreast of that,~ um,~ I'm sure being a broker, you try to at least hear something occasionally on what's going on with that.

Tracy Hayes: ~Uh, ~Patty and I, when I had Patty on, we came to the conclusion, at least she came to the conclusion, I agree with it,~ um,~ that, Even now in the buyer's consultation, we need to be a little more,~ uh,~ you know, ~uh,~ we actually explain what we do, right? What is it the real estate agent does, you know, because there's so much,~ uh,~ as I use the analogy of the iceberg, there's so much below the surface nobody sees on a daily basis.

Tracy Hayes: Are you guys starting to, you know, talk about that. Has that been discussion because of the lawsuit and how an attitudes of some buyers may, we might not have seen it yet, but they might be changing it. Yeah. So 

Jeff Riber: I feel like I've, 

Jeff Riber: I've always been for in promoting sitting down and having a buyer consultation before you go out and start [00:56:00] showing property,~ uh,~ and working through an actual.

Jeff Riber: like value add presentation. Here's what we do. Here's how we do it. Here's why we think this is going to be a win for you. And aiming at having a buyer brokerage agreement signed at the end of that appointment or meeting. But now more than ever, yes, we're, we're talking about that much more consistently.

Jeff Riber: ~Um, ~I think old habits die hard. So we're still not as a group super consistent about having buyer brokerage agreement signed, but we're. Improving and getting better at it. And I think the, you know, the law suit, however it plays out for us here in Florida,~ uh,~ it's not a bad thing to like do a diagnosis of our business and go like, what value are we adding to the customer?

Jeff Riber: And are we communicating that well upfront so that,~ uh,~ you know, a stitch in time saves nine. Like if, 

Jeff Riber: if we do all of our, work and value add up front, then when we hit some sort of bump in the road down the line, it's not going to be a big deal. They trust us. They know that we're working for them. They know what problems we're solving.

Jeff Riber: They're going to be on board. So. [00:57:00] 

Tracy Hayes: Let's talk, let's drill into pursuit realities. Tell everyone what's, what's going on there. You, you, you, you know, I put in here, culture, ideology, mindset,~ um,~ are, do you, are you looking for new agents or you are very picky on who you bring in the door? 

Jeff Riber: Yeah, good question. ~Um, ~and so the latter, I would say we are absolutely looking for new agents, but we want to be strategic.

Jeff Riber: ~Um, Um, ~and I don't know that we have the perfect formula yet for what the agent looks like, but we're, we're building that out. And it's one of those things too, that you sort of know it when you see it. ~Uh, ~we've had a couple of great hires recently,~ um,~ and including an administrative hire. And I told her she came on in September as sort of our office manager,~ um,~ that we had 98 applicants.

Jeff Riber: We did nine,~ uh,~ video interviews. And then we had. For in person interviews and took our time and, and we're just intentional about making sure we ask as many questions as possible. We ask the right questions. We wanted to know that they were going to be a fit and [00:58:00] she is a home run. She's doing phenomenal.

Jeff Riber: So we're trying to take that same approach with agents like so often. It's been my observation that somebody raises their hand and says, Hey, I have my license. Can I come work for you? The real estate brokerage or broker is more or less like, yeah, come on. You know, we'll figure it out as we go. And I'm sort of wanting to pump the brakes on that a little bit and go, wait, you know, what are you trying to accomplish?

Jeff Riber: How do you want to do business? ~Um, ~You know, what, what are the things that you like and don't like about, you know, if you've been in the business before, how real estate brokerages operate. 

Tracy Hayes: you hit it earlier. You know, are they willing to take the coaching, right?

Tracy Hayes: If they, they're coming to you,~ um,~ are they an agent that's just been producing and just, Hey, loves your location. It's close to their house and they're, they're just going to sign up on you. They they're off producing and they never call you. No problem, you know, you know issues and you know, you see them once a while at a meeting or a luncheon You may provide right?

Tracy Hayes: Yeah, you know you hope for those a lot of those agents, right? But there's you know Obviously the core of the agents are the ones that do need help and then if you're gonna pour into them and say, okay Well, all right, let's [00:59:00] sit down. This is okay. This is a map out this is what we agree this we're gonna do steps one two, and three to get you going and You know, they're not showing up Right.

Tracy Hayes: You know, they're not doing step number two 

Jeff Riber: and I'd rather rather figure that out before we start down the path of, you know, they're in the office and now we have to have this awkward conversation about,~ um,~ you're not showing up, you're not doing the work, you know, you're not having the drive and it's one thing if they, you know, maybe they've got a personal issue, it's preventing them.

Jeff Riber: Okay, that aside. ~Uh, ~but if they're just not wanting to put in the effort, it's like, how can we,~ Uh,~ sort of sniff that out beforehand so that we're not having 

Tracy Hayes: to, well, you don't have, you don't have,~ um,~ you have your resources and you've got to strategically utilize them and, you know, when you're at a big,~ uh,~ you know, Keller Williams or something like that, where they're high, you know, got hundreds of agents in the office, they're all, you know, they're like, okay, whoever does deals, they, they can Watson, they're used to, You know, having those,~ uh,~ dead weight, right?

Tracy Hayes: They say 49 percent of the agents did less than one deal, [01:00:00] right? Something like that was the number. You know, they have those 49%. You don't have the time, you have the time to pour into those guys who are willing to, you know, ~uh, ~work with you and take your knowledge and put it to play because that makes you, you'll see as they're doing so.

Tracy Hayes: You don't have the people that are not going to show up or get on that phone call or get on that Zoom call. You don't have time for 

Jeff Riber: that. Yeah, that's 100 percent correct. At this point in my career, it's like, ~um, ~you know, I've been at this for a while. I just,~ um,~ a don't have the energy and don't think that it's really valuable for anybody just to throw it against the wall and see what sticks like that.

Jeff Riber: We're trying to be more strategic than that these days. 

Tracy Hayes: What is,~ um,~ if you were telling you, you were telling an agent about pursuit, which I'm basically that's what I'm asking. You tell us about pursuit. What, what is the, yeah. If I signed up, what is, what am I going to see? What am I going to feel? What's the mindset?

Tracy Hayes: What's the ideology that you've created in the office or not necessarily you, but obviously a lot of your core people that are with you have created been [01:01:00] part of this 

Jeff Riber: culture. So one thing that I think is different about us or I hope that is different about us,~ uh,~ is, is that there is a certain level of humility that exists.

Jeff Riber: group and with our organization that's just not the average of a real estate brokerage. ~Uh, ~anytime you put a bunch of sales people in the room, I just think by,~ um,~ you know, personality,~ uh,~ that gets into the business. A lot of times it's like me, me, me, look at what I've done. ~Um, ~and that can just become toxic if you let it go unchecked.

Jeff Riber: And so we've made a conscious effort to make sure that Our group is not that so that's one and then two ~Um, ~we're strategic about everything that we do. So it's like I was talking about before I've been at this for a long time. ~Uh, ~any of the problems that we're solving, whether it's growing your business, organizing your business,~ um,~ like we have virtual assistants that help out with things administratively with making phone calls, the software that we use, the way that it connects with, we're sending direct mail to your [01:02:00] customers on your behalf.

Jeff Riber: Like all of these things were very strategic about and it's sort of second level thinking,~ uh,~ that first level is like, Oh yeah, like if I make the phone call. ~Uh, ~hopefully I'll get the business and if I don't, no big deal. It's like, okay, but can we capture their information? Can we now start advertising to this person on Facebook and Instagram?

Jeff Riber: And then can we go get their mailing address and then start sending them postcards? It's like, how can we be more strategic about the way that you're building your business as an agent? So I think it's those two things are two words that I would use to describe us. It's one, there's a level of humility there that's,~ uh,~ you know, just isn't always present in real estate brokerage.

Jeff Riber: And then two, it's being strategic with how we. Grow and do our business. 

Tracy Hayes: You, the person you just hired, was that an additional hire or a fill in? ~Uh, ~fill in actually. Okay. So you had to replace somebody,~ um,~ support wise, an agent coming to pursuit, what can they expect? Or, you know, even you, if you went to another brokerage, what level of, of support, [01:03:00] and obviously I'm assume you're thinking about yourself when that.

Tracy Hayes: agent comes into your office that you give them the same support. So what kind of support do you, do you have? 

Jeff Riber: ~Uh, ~so, so this is a question that we've thought about recently and you have two primary things going on in the real estate industry these days. One, you have teams, you know, there's a lot of,~ uh,~ high functioning teams, even in our market, and then.

Jeff Riber: So you have brokerages and we're sort of a hybrid, what I will call a Team Ridge . ~Uh, ~so we're not exactly a team and we're not exactly just a big brokerage. We're a big brokerage. ~Uh, ~you know, they made either you're just a license on the wall and they don't talk to you or do anything with you and vice versa.

Jeff Riber: The team, you have all sorts of obligations and your splits probably aren't quite as good,~ uh,~ but you are getting some leads and probably some training. And we're, we're sort of somewhere in the middle. That,~ um,~ you know, I'm there as the broker owner and I'm, I'm helping with education and problem solving, but we also have,~ uh,~ our full time property manager that he's in office helping out.

Jeff Riber: We have a full time office administrator, then we have a part time office administrator, and then we have two virtual assistants who are sort of [01:04:00] organizing all of this as well. ~Um, ~so it's somewhere in the middle of team and brokerage, but the splits. For the agent reflect that it's like, you know, it's not one of these hundred percent models where you just show up and yeah, you get all the commission, but it's also not the team model where you're doing a lot of the work, but still only getting a split that's not anywhere near all of the commission.

Jeff Riber: So it's like right in the middle and it's so far has been a strategic fit for the agents that we're bringing on under that model because I sort of changed it up when we went off. On our own, 

Tracy Hayes: right? Well, I mean, you're growing and you're evolving. And I think one of the, one of the challenges I know talking to a lot of agents,~ um,~ you know, I keep telling my wife, she's kind of at this level to where she's hit a, there's only so much one agent can do.

Tracy Hayes: You know, you hit a lid, and now you either need to hire assistant or be part of an organization like this where you're or, you know, there's ~ uh,~ transaction coordinators are paid by the deal, whatever virtual assistants, that sort of thing going on to [01:05:00] help you how you over your years just to step back, you know, outside of pursuit, but all of your years of experience,~ um,~ did you reach that level?

Tracy Hayes: Or I know you've seen other agents do. And what would you recommend? How would you coach them how to get through that lid? Yeah, 

Jeff Riber: ~um, ~I mean, my personal direction with hitting the lid and then figuring out what the next step was, was I sort of went horizontally. So, ~um, ~since I'm the broker owner, we have property management, I'm doing buy, fix and sell stuff, buy, fix and hold stuff.

Jeff Riber: ~Um, ~I'm listing and selling. We have agents. And so I sort of went that direction. I didn't ever worry about doing more deals in a year,~ uh,~ because I wanted to be able to help the agents in our office. ~Um, ~and so I tried to multiply my efforts out across our 

Tracy Hayes: real from your experience. So you had that experience and you enjoyed doing it and had a, you have a.

Tracy Hayes: And so 

Jeff Riber: that said my time and the reason that I can work 35 or 40 hours a week and still end up getting a lot done is because we have great help. And so for the person who [01:06:00] realizes like I can't do all this and maintain my sanity, I, Think, especially in 2024, the real easy place to start is to write down everything that you're doing in a day, like literally just document what it is that you do and go hire an assistant, whether it's a virtual, I'd suggest a virtual assistant because that world exists and you can go online and find it easily and offload a lot of these tasks.

Jeff Riber: Like if you don't want to input listings into MLS, if you don't want to capture buyer data on a questionnaire, whenever you're working with somebody new, if you don't want to, I don't know. ~Uh, ~this would be in person, but drop signs off with there are a thousand things that you do in a day that you could hand to somebody else and they could do just as good a job.

Jeff Riber: That would be my suggestion. And that changed 

Tracy Hayes: the game for me expand a little bit on the virtual assistant. I mean, what are you, what are you finding? ~Um,~ you know, there's got to be, obviously there's companies out there that are specializing it because I know real estate agents are running into this issue.

Tracy Hayes: So they're training these, these people. What are some of the things that, that agents are having them do that are, that are taking them off, [01:07:00] taking off their plate? 

Jeff Riber: Okay. Oh gosh. So what I'll one thing that our virtual assistant does for everyone is there are countless number of websites now that send referrals to real estate agents,~ um,~ upnest, home light, fast expert, effective agent, whatever the list goes on.

Jeff Riber: Yeah. Even think to like Zillow, realtor. com, homes. com. Right. And most, if not all of these portals or companies want you to, every time they send you a referral. Go update their website, which seems like no big deal. You know, we get a referral. Update that you got the referral, received it or? I talked to Tracy, Tracy said he's thinking about a home purchase.

Jeff Riber: Da da da da da, I'm going to follow up with him in two weeks. They want to know that if they handed you this business that you're keeping up with it. Which doesn't sound like a big deal until there's like 17 different referral sites because that's what I went and did, I went and signed up on every single one of these things.

Jeff Riber: And then all of a sudden you realize I'm spending four hours a day just keeping. Tabs on conversations. So now we have [01:08:00] the hub. We use follow a boss for our contact management and our virtual assistant knows to three times a week. She goes in and goes into every single website, takes the name, puts it into follow a boss, takes the notes out of follow a boss, cuts and paste it into the referral website to keep them happy to keep referrals coming.

Jeff Riber: Right. ~Uh, ~and so that would be one simple example. And there are countless examples of that where it's saving us. Hours and hours and hours a week,~ uh,~ where we're not doing things that are, 

Tracy Hayes: I would think that I'm going to go back to my wife cause I know her best. The virtual assistant, well, they don't know me.

Tracy Hayes: I don't know them. ~Uh, ~you know, this is how I, you know, do things, but like you're saying, when you're right, you're sitting there for whatever week, two a month, whatever, writing down what you did every hour of, of the, you know, the, the daylight of what you've been doing and, and add all that, a lot of that.

Tracy Hayes: And I don't know, I'm just assuming a lot of that anyone can do, whether [01:09:00] they know 

Jeff Riber: you or not. Bingo. And I do a zoom call. It's a Google meet every week on Mondays with our two one makes phone calls and one's more administrative are two virtual assistants. And we just do like a 15 minute catch up. Hey.

Jeff Riber: That was great last week. Let's do this this week, da dah, dah, dah, dah. And, and we check in. So I do know them. One of them has been with me for probably seven years now. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then two, 

Tracy Hayes: so they do know you now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're Facebook friends 

Jeff Riber: way back. ~Um, ~and, and so the other thing, two books, one, this is sort of a classic at this point, but Tim Ferris, the Four Hour Work Week can get into a lot on, you know, automating, outsourcing or just, you know, wiping something from your schedule and agenda altogether.

Jeff Riber: Mm-Hmm. . And then I can't think of the author's name. I think the name of the book was virtual freedom,~ uh,~ that I read in. It was exclusively around the idea of hiring a virtual assistant and how to work with that person, because this is big economy and big business these days. ~Um, ~and so between those two books, I had a comfort level with, all right, let's go out and do this.

Jeff Riber: And now I'm super glad I did. 

Tracy Hayes: You [01:10:00] know, well, I think any agent would just be loving life. If all they had to do was go show the house. Maybe fill out the contract. No, I don't even fill out the 

Jeff Riber: contract. Don't even fill out the contract. Hey, here, offer price, EMD, closing date, inspection contingency, text, and the offer shows up in my dot lube.

Tracy Hayes: Ready to go. So your virtual is actually, and then you review, you just review it. Oh yeah, I'll review it. But it saved me 

Jeff Riber: 15 minutes of, I got to go cut and paste the legal description. I got to go check the seller name. I got to go, you know, check 17 boxes or whatever. So 

Tracy Hayes: yeah. Yeah, so Because I think, you know, a lot of people,~ um,~ discount the fact that if you spent more time doing those money producing things, which would be, you know, being in front of your clients, I've had agents on, they talk about building relationships and they use the,~ um,~ the assistance virtual or otherwise to do all that stuff so they can spend more time.

Tracy Hayes: going and having a glass of wine [01:11:00] with their clients at four o'clock or whatever. And it's those relationships that have spun more, more business. 

Jeff Riber: Yeah. And that's just, you know, having good. And I find that so with our recent hire, actually, she's the one who's typically Tana writing offers, not my virtual assistant,~ uh,~ is the truth of the matter.

Jeff Riber: And she's in office, but you could have a virtual assistant do it the same way. But It gives me a confidence and comfort level that I can go out and do those things. And the ship is still on course. Like the wheels are not falling off just because I'm not paying attention to every little detail. And I think agents, we can get into that, especially high performing agents.

Jeff Riber: Like if I don't do it, it's not going to be done. Right. But you can't grow and you can't really get a whole lot done if. You only ever,~ uh,~ do things yourself. Yeah, 

Tracy Hayes: no, I, it's in the loan world too. I mean, they, they want to go in and it's like, okay, the applications filled out. You've, you've got the documents, you send it on to the processor.

Tracy Hayes: That process is actually smarter than us. So. You know, they're double checking our work. Did we [01:12:00] dot the I cross the T, you know, are, are we in compliance that does? That's what, that's what they enjoy doing. And like you said, you were mentioned earlier to disc assessment. There are people who like to sit in cubes and just, you know, have their headset on and just be focused on closing that they'll make a phone call here or there, whatever they need to do and fill it in and pass it on to the next person.

Tracy Hayes: Or there's people that love doing that. 

Jeff Riber: Literally our new hire tenant, her disc assessment looks like the exact opposite of mine. Yeah, when you look at the little charts, it's literally opposite and she enjoys all of the things that I don't like doing and vice versa. She doesn't want to do or like doing the things that I 

Tracy Hayes: do.

Tracy Hayes: Well, if that, if that time over the course of the year that she says she gives you enough time to go find another flip. ~Uh, ~yes. 

Jeff Riber: yeah, the, the flip a dollar per hour return far exceeds anything else that I do in the real estate world because yeah, if I'm buying it, those are good deals. 

Tracy Hayes: So, ~um, ~is there anything we haven't talked about that you like that?

Tracy Hayes: I don't know everything about you. So there's something you want everyone to know, you know, go for it. [01:13:00] We ran 

Jeff Riber: the gamut. I don't know. ~Um, ~we're, we're still taking applications. I do play basketball twice a week and a morning group that if you're, if you're a Hooper. Now, these days, it's the same group that I've been playing with for the last, I don't know, 14 years, maybe?

Jeff Riber: So we're all getting older now, so you probably need to be 30 plus. Like, if you're less than 30 years old, don't talk to me. But, if you're a hooper and you're 30 plus,~ uh,~ we're taking applications for, we play Tuesday and Friday mornings at 545, so. 

Tracy Hayes: Where's that at? ~Uh, ~we actually play 

Jeff Riber: bowls. Oh, okay. It's not an open gym, though.

Jeff Riber: It's like, sort of like Fight Club. Have you ever seen the movie Fight Club? ~Uh, ~I shouldn't even be talking about it right now. The rule of Fight Club is You can't make a donation and get in the door? You can't, you can't talk about Fight Club. But,~ uh,~ 

Tracy Hayes: anyways. Well, you know, that, that's actually, you know, because we were talking pre show about our kids and so forth.

Tracy Hayes: That's something I want to do. ~Uh, ~Is, is talking about the different basketball programs that are around the, you know, the different clubs that are around and then, you know, there's opportunities for the, you know, some of these kids is because there's a number of private schools that are, that are there and so forth [01:14:00] and, and talk about school.

Tracy Hayes: Maybe we get Christian Laitner come in, you know, he'll be our, he'll be our drop on the, on the social media. Everyone want to hear what Christian has to say? Maybe. I don't know. But,~ uh, um, ~Bye. Bye. I appreciate you 

Jeff Riber: coming on. Hey, thank you for having 

Tracy Hayes: me. It's been great. Hopefully,~ uh,~ everyone got a little more about what Pursuit, what you're all about, what Pursuit's all about.

Tracy Hayes: If you're interested,~ uh,~ Jeff's reachable. He's on social media. Reach out and,~ uh,~ you know, ~uh, ~even if it's just to have a cup of coffee. I've had agents say they go and talk to other brokerages just to learn what other people are doing. Maybe you're, maybe you're not interested, or maybe there's something that was said today is say, Hey, let me talk to Jeff and learn a little bit more about what he's doing in the, in the ideology because I think as you grow in the real estate business, you want to find a, well in life you want to find, you know, you're more comfortable around a lot of like minded people,~ um,~ that maybe what you expressed today.

Tracy Hayes: Some, it clicked with somebody and give Jeff a call and have a cup of coffee with him. 

Jeff Riber: Yeah, and you're more than welcome to reach out Tracy. Thank you for having me. This has been great. Appreciate it. Thank you [01:15:00]